2007 World Cup Winning Team Didn't ONLY Meet Sonia Gandhi, They Also Met PM

This claim is misleading, the Indian team also met former PM Manmohan Singh on the same day.

Fact-check: The claim about only Sonia Gandhi meeting the Indian cricket World Cup team in 2007 is misleading.

(Photo: The Quint)

A photo of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi posing with the 2007 Indian cricket World Cup winning team is going viral on social media.

Along with social media users, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell chief Amit Malviya, also shared the same photo to claim that Gandhi was not at the Prime Ministerial position in 2007 but she still met with the team because of 'her privilege'.

The claim also insinuates that the then PM Manmohan Singh did not get the opportunity to meet the team.

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: This claim is misleading. Several archival photos and reports prove that the winning team also met with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 30 October 2007.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on the viral image and this led us to the same image shared by Getty Images.

• The description of the image stated that then Chairperson of India's UPA Government and Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi posed for a photo with the Indian cricket team during a meeting at Gandhi's residence in New Delhi, 30 October 2007.

This image is from 2007.

(Source: Getty Images/screenshot)

A very similar image on Getty Images also stated that the 20-20 Cricket World Cup winners (2007) also met with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Indian president Pratibha Patil.

• Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search on Google using 'Manmohan Singh meets cricket team 2007 world cup' and this led us to a report by Times of India.

• It was published on 31 October 2007 and it carried images of the team with Singh.

• It also stated that Singh was accompanied by Ambika Soni, Prithviraj Chavan, Rajeev Shukla and more.

Images from 2007.

(Source: TOI/Screenshot)

• We found more images from 30 October 2007 showing Singh with the 2007 20-20 Cricket World Cup winners and those can be seen here, here and here.

• Here's an image from the same day that shows the team with several leaders, including the PM.

The winning cricket team met with several dignitaries.

(Source: Getty Images/screenshot)

We also found images from the same event on PMO archives.

Images from the same event on PMO archives.

(Source: PMO archives/Screenshot)

Conclusion: Clearly, the claim about only Sonia Gandhi meeting the Indian cricket World Cup team in 2007 is misleading.

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